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Monday, July 31, 2017

31 July 2017, Writing - part x206,
Novel Form, Tension and Release, Pathos, more than Pity and Fear

Announcement: Delay, my new novels can be seen on the internet, but the publisher
has delayed all their fiction output due to the economy. I'll keep you
informed. More information can be found at www.ancientlight.com. Check out my novels--I think you'll really enjoy
them.

Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon.
This was my 21st novel and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in
installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in
addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel
was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and
tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this
blog and read the entire novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.

I'm using this novel as an example
of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll
keep you informed along the way.

Today's Blog: To see the steps in the publication process, visit my
writing website http://www.ldalford.com/ and select "production
schedule," you will be sent to http://www.sisteroflight.com/.

The four plus one basic rules I
employ when writing:

1. Don't confuse your readers.

2. Entertain your readers.

3. Ground your readers in the
writing.

4. Don't show (or tell) everything.

4a. Show what can be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted on the stage
of the novel.

5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.

These are the steps I use to write a
novel including the five discrete parts of a novel:

I
finished writing my 28th novel, working title, School, potential
title Deirdre: Enchantment and the School.The theme statement is: Sorcha, the abandoned
child of an Unseelie and a human, secretly attends Wycombe Abbey girls’ school
where she meets the problem child Deirdre and is redeemed.

Here is the cover proposal for Deirdre:
Enchantment and the School.

Cover
Proposal

The most important scene in any
novel is the initial scene, but eventually, you have to move to the rising
action. I continued writing my 29th novel, working title Red Sonja.I finished my 28th novel, working
title School.If you noticed, I started on number 28, but
finished number 29 (in the starting sequence—it’s actually higher than
that).I adjusted the numbering.I do keep everything clear in my
records.

How to begin a novel.Number one thought, we need an entertaining
idea.I usually encapsulate such an idea
with a theme statement.Since I’m
writing a new novel, we need a new theme statement.Here is an initial cut.

For novel 29:Red Sonja, a Soviet spy, infiltrates the
X-plane programs at Edwards AFB as a test pilot’s administrative clerk, learns
about freedom, and is redeemed.

The
protagonist and the telic flaw are tied permanently together.The novel plot is completely dependent on the
protagonist and the protagonist’s telic flaw.They are inseparable.This is
likely the most critical concept about any normal (classical) form novel.

So,
how do you write a rich and powerful initial scene?Let’s start from a theme statement.Here is an example from my latest novel:

The
theme statement for Deirdre: Enchantment
and the School is: Sorcha, the abandoned child of an Unseelie and a human,
secretly attends Wycombe Abbey girls’ school where she meets the problem child
Deirdre and is redeemed.

Here
is the scene development outline:

1.
Scene input (comes from the previous scene output or is an initial scene)

4.
Write the scene using the output and creative elements to build the tension.

5.
Write the release

6.
Write the kicker

If
you have the characters (protagonist, protagonist’s helper, and antagonist),
the initial setting, the telic flaw (from the protagonist), a plot idea, the
theme action, then you are ready to write the initial scene.I would state that since you have a
protagonist, the telic flaw, a plot idea, and the theme action, you have about
everything—what you might be lacking is the tension and release cycle in the
initial scene.

Tension
and release is the means to success in scene writing.The creative elements you introduce into the
scenes (Chekov’s guns) are the catalysts that drive entertainment and
excitement in a scene, and this is what scenes are all about.

I
am moving into the way to develop sufficient tension and release.One of the best means is through pathos.I’ve written about pathos developing
characters.What I want to do is expand
this into pathos developing scenes.In
most cases, a scene with a pathos developing character can be made
pathetic.In any case, almost any scene
can invoke pathos—pity and fear.This
development of pity and fear is the driving force in tension and release.The question is how the author develops it.

Fear
is just one mechanism for developing powerful and sufficient tension and
release in a scene.The other mechanism
is pity.

In
a novel, pity is the emotion of sorrow and compassion in the reader caused by
the suffering and misfortunes of the characters.

Pity
and fear are the classic means of producing tension and release in a novel and
in a scene.There are other emotions
that can be used for tension and release.Here is a list of emotions:

Sadness
→ feeling sad. Other words are sorrow, grief (a stronger
feeling, for example when someone has died) or depression (feeling sad for a long
time). Some people think depression is a different emotion.

Anticipation → in the sense of looking forward
positively to something which is going to happen. Expectation
is more neutral.

I
think the definitions are terrible, but we can go with the basics of the
emotions.Notice that pity is not
included in the list.This kind of makes
me laugh.Either pity isn’t important in
the modern idea of emotions or the modern world would like to ignore pity.Basically, using the style of the definitions
above, Pity is empathy based on suffering and misfortune.Either the author of this list (Robert
Plutchik by the way) imagines there is no longer any suffering or misfortune or
there is no reason for empathy.If pity
is the most powerful emotion, especially for writing, then Robert certainly is
missing something.We can use the other
emotions to look at tension and release.

Fear
we’ve covered.Anger is a great emotion
for tension and release.If you remember
that pity and fear are emotions the author wants to produce in the reader, not
the character, then you can see the limitations and use of anger in tension and
release.Can we produce anger in our
reader’s—you betcha.Anger is a powerful
emotion.Controlled anger is an even
more powerful emotion.As an author, if
you develop anger in your characters, you need to carefully feed that anger
over to your readers.The trick is to
get your readers to feel the same anger as your characters.In general, although anger is a fantastic,
you must make certain the anger fits and can be used to promote proper anger in
your readers.This is why pity and fear
are so easy and powerful.It is easy to use
suffering and misfortune to develop pity in your readers.It is equally easy to use the threat of
impending suffering and misfortune to develop fear in your readers.The question is what do I use to produce
anger in my readers?Threats?Injustice?Here is an explanation:“There
are many common triggers for anger, such as losing your patience, feeling as if
your opinion or efforts aren't appreciated, and injustice. Other causes of
anger include memories of traumatic or enraging events and worrying about
personal problems.”

There
is the list.Which of these will produce
anger in your readers?A character
losing their patience might work, or not if the reason for losing it isn’t very
strong.Injustice is a good one.The feeling that one’s opinion or efforts
aren’t appreciated could be good, but must be presented correctly.The last two: memories and worry likewise
have to be treated carefully.Anger is a
good emotion to build tension and release.It might be limited depending on how the author presents it in a scene.

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Announcement: Delay, my new novels can be seen on the internet, but the publisher
has delayed all their fiction output due to the economy. I'll keep you
informed. More information can be found at www.ancientlight.com. Check out my novels--I think you'll really enjoy
them.

Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon.
This was my 21st novel and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in
installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in
addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel
was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and
tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this
blog and read the entire novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.

I'm using this novel as an example
of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll
keep you informed along the way.

Today's Blog: To see the steps in the publication process, visit my
writing website http://www.ldalford.com/ and select "production
schedule," you will be sent to http://www.sisteroflight.com/.

The four plus one basic rules I
employ when writing:

1. Don't confuse your readers.

2. Entertain your readers.

3. Ground your readers in the
writing.

4. Don't show (or tell) everything.

4a. Show what can be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted on the stage
of the novel.

5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.

These are the steps I use to write a
novel including the five discrete parts of a novel:

I
finished writing my 28th novel, working title, School, potential
title Deirdre: Enchantment and the School.The theme statement is: Sorcha, the abandoned
child of an Unseelie and a human, secretly attends Wycombe Abbey girls’ school
where she meets the problem child Deirdre and is redeemed.

Here is the cover proposal for Deirdre:
Enchantment and the School.

Cover
Proposal

The most important scene in any
novel is the initial scene, but eventually, you have to move to the rising
action. I continued writing my 29th novel, working title Red Sonja.I finished my 28th novel, working
title School.If you noticed, I started on number 28, but
finished number 29 (in the starting sequence—it’s actually higher than
that).I adjusted the numbering.I do keep everything clear in my
records.

How to begin a novel.Number one thought, we need an entertaining
idea.I usually encapsulate such an idea
with a theme statement.Since I’m
writing a new novel, we need a new theme statement.Here is an initial cut.

For novel 29:Red Sonja, a Soviet spy, infiltrates the
X-plane programs at Edwards AFB as a test pilot’s administrative clerk, learns
about freedom, and is redeemed.

The
protagonist and the telic flaw are tied permanently together.The novel plot is completely dependent on the
protagonist and the protagonist’s telic flaw.They are inseparable.This is
likely the most critical concept about any normal (classical) form novel.

So,
how do you write a rich and powerful initial scene?Let’s start from a theme statement.Here is an example from my latest novel:

The
theme statement for Deirdre: Enchantment
and the School is: Sorcha, the abandoned child of an Unseelie and a human,
secretly attends Wycombe Abbey girls’ school where she meets the problem child
Deirdre and is redeemed.

Here
is the scene development outline:

1.
Scene input (comes from the previous scene output or is an initial scene)

4.
Write the scene using the output and creative elements to build the tension.

5.
Write the release

6.
Write the kicker

If
you have the characters (protagonist, protagonist’s helper, and antagonist),
the initial setting, the telic flaw (from the protagonist), a plot idea, the
theme action, then you are ready to write the initial scene.I would state that since you have a protagonist,
the telic flaw, a plot idea, and the theme action, you have about
everything—what you might be lacking is the tension and release cycle in the
initial scene.

Tension
and release is the means to success in scene writing.The creative elements you introduce into the
scenes (Chekov’s guns) are the catalysts that drive entertainment and
excitement in a scene, and this is what scenes are all about.

I
am moving into the way to develop sufficient tension and release.One of the best means is through pathos.I’ve written about pathos developing
characters.What I want to do is expand
this into pathos developing scenes.In
most cases, a scene with a pathos developing character can be made
pathetic.In any case, almost any scene
can invoke pathos—pity and fear.This
development of pity and fear is the driving force in tension and release.The question is how the author develops it.

Fear
is just one mechanism for developing powerful and sufficient tension and
release in a scene.The other mechanism
is pity.

In
a novel, pity is the emotion of sorrow and compassion in the reader caused by
the suffering and misfortunes of the characters.

Pity
is the result of immediate suffering and past misfortune.Fear is the result of impending events.This is important to note, we can turn pity
into fear and fear into pity.Pity becomes
fear (in the mind of the reader) when the known suffering and misfortune becomes
an unknown impending event or issue.For
example, pity is a hungry child; fear is the same child wondering where the
next meal will come from.Pity is the
loss of wealth; fear is the impending threat of the loss of wealth.For example, the death of Sara Crew’s father
is a terrible loss.The result is pity—there
is no threat of loss, the loss has already occurred; therefore, no fear, only
pity.On the other hand, with the death
of Sara’s father comes the question, “Who will pay the bills?”This question build fear in the reader—who indeed
will pay the bills?We then learn that
Sara is destitute, the fear turns to pity.

This
is just like a scene—in fact, I picked a specific scene from the novel, The Little Princess, to illustrate this
concept.This is the scene of Sara’s
birthday party, where she learns of her father’s death and her newly fallen
state.In this scene, the author used
many powerful methods to make tension and release, almost all of these tension and
release cycles were based in pity and fear.I would like to say that all tension and release cycles in scenes are
based in pity and fear, but this isn’t true.Pity and fear are likely the best and most powerful means to build
tension and release, but an author can use other emotions and methods.Perhaps they are worth writing about—as well
as using pity and fear to develop tension.

About Me

L. D. Alford is a novelist whose writing explores with originality those cultures and societies we think we already know. His writing distinctively develops the connections between present events and history—he combines them with threads of reality that bring the past alive. L. D. Alford is familiar with technology and cultures—he is widely traveled and earned a B.S. in Chemistry from Pacific Lutheran University, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University, a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from The University of Dayton, and is a graduate of Air War College, Air Command and Staff College, and the USAF Test Pilot School. L. D. Alford is an author who combines intimate scientific and cultural knowledge into fiction worlds that breathe reality. He is the author of three historical fiction novels: Centurion, Aegypt, and The Second Mission, and three science fiction novels: The End of Honor, The Fox’s Honor, and A Season of Honor.